


you were my dear (everything golden dies)

by ryanreynolds



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Dick Grayson, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 18:28:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14754029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryanreynolds/pseuds/ryanreynolds
Summary: In the dark, cold streets of Gotham, there’s a Golden Boy hiding in the shadows.A little bird fell, a little bird got hurt, and the big bad Bat is nowhere to be found; a timid voice calling out in the rush of a city is nothing, it cannot be heard.(he was once a bird, and then he killed someone, and now, he's just a golden boy who faded.)





	you were my dear (everything golden dies)

**Author's Note:**

> hey so yeah, i have no idea what this is, but i got feels about dick grayson after having been to my last day of school party, so here it is i guess:)))))

In the dark, cold streets of Gotham, there’s a Golden Boy hiding in the shadows.

A little bird fell, a little bird got hurt, and the big bad Bat is nowhere to be found; a timid voice calling out in the rush of a city is nothing, it cannot be heard. One bird, h muses as he’s struggling with keeping his eyes open, is nothing compared to a bat. A bird with a broken arm – he’s pretty sure it’s broken, anyway – is nothing compared to a bat that can fly wherever it desires.

Or, and at this his head grows a little fuzzy, he’s not a bird anymore. He was a bird, and then he failed, failed, failed, failed, and the Bat took his mother’s colours and his mother’s nickname for him away from him, gave it to another who resented him, and he was thrown out of his home and city. And then, then, then, he gasps at the sudden pain in his ribs, and he’s struggling to remember quite what he was thinking of, and he just wants to get warm again.

It’s like this, and this he knows for a fact; there’s a winged creature hiding in the shadows. He’s not a Golden Boy, for golden boys do not fall, they do not let anyone down. Golden boys are that, golden. They do not fade. He is maybe an impostor, a bronze boy trying, hoping, and failing to be a golden boy. There’s no denying that he was within reach of succeeding, but it’s fate, and he’s never been one to oppose fate, not when it really counted: Graysons were always meant to fall, it seemed.

He did it once, and lost everything. His parents did it once, and lost their lives, and he lost everything. A fall means loss, that’s what he’s learned, that’s what he knows.

_Why do we fall?_

There’s no greater meaning behind pain that great, he’s decided that a long time ago. There’s no point to falling, falling, falling. No greater lesson to be learned. Only blood and mangled limbs, and a family that will never be whole, and a millionaire playboy for a father that is also a bat in the night. 

There’s a winged creature in the streets of Gotham, and it’s raining, and he cannot call himself a bird, because he’s not a bird anymore. He was once, and then he fell, like his mother and father before him. He’s not a bat, he never wants that mantle, he never wants to hold the weight of the world on his shoulders. Bruce does it so well, but Dick is not Bruce, and he falters at just holding the weight of his own life, and mistakes, and guilt. He tried once, he tried to do what Bruce had done so effortlessly, and he failed. He failed at being a bat, just like he failed at being a bird.

Someone died, and that’s why he’s no longer a bird. He let someone die, no, he killed someone, and that’s a no-go. If you want to be one of the good guys, you do not kill.

No, that’s not right.

If you want to be loved by your father – and oh, how Dick wanted that, once upon a time, still does – you cannot kill. Dick disobeyed that order, was kicked out; an example for the birds to follow. Do not kill or you will see how quickly gold can fade. How quickly a golden boy can be proved a fake.

It’s so cold, and he wants to be brought home to the Manor, he wants to be tucked into bed by Alfred, and he wants Bruce to cradle him to his chest like he did when it was just them. Before life caught up to them to show them that nothing good truly lasts, and that Dick could never be the person Bruce wanted him to be; that it was better to just take Dick’s colours and name, and give them to someone who actually deserved them. 

He wants so much, in that moment, to just give up and call Bruce, tell him he’s sorry and ask him to come and save him from the cold, but he cannot seem to stay awake. The darkness is welcoming because as unconsciousness begins to claim him, the pain and the cold fades, and he feels his trembling body still, and he’s so grateful that he barely thinks about the cons of just passing out, of giving in. The thought of the thugs of Gotham barely grazes his mind though, before he lets himself drop for a second or two.

He wakes to shouting, he wakes to carnage, and he wakes to a headache that’s threatening to split his head open. He tries shush the shouting figure in front of him, but he can’t quite get his tongue to work, so he decides that he can convey his meaning by closing his eyes a bit. Just for a moment. Then he’ll open them again, but the feeling of darkness and nothing else is so tempting, he forgets to open them for a moment.

And then he awakens to flying, and he thinks that someone’s calling to him.

It sounds like long lost brothers, and he thinks that he’s dreaming, and that’s okay. If the dream could just show him his mother and father again too, then he’ll be happy. 

Perhaps he should try to embrace the darkness again, try to see if it wants to show him his first family, now that it was so kind to show him his second. 

He tries, but fails, but that’s alright because the dream shifts from darkness to his family once more, and they seem a little angry, and he doesn’t quite know why, and he thinks that perhaps it’s not the best dream if they’re just going to be angry, so he decides to close his eyes again.

He thinks that someone might call for him to not do that. Well, then they shouldn’t have been so angry. He ignores the plea and sinks back down into the black ocean that’s surrounding him. He doesn’t even fight the feeling of drowning, of choking.

So, this is what he knows. There’s probably still a winged creature in the streets of Gotham, and he’s not supposed to be there, but he’s still there because he wants to come back but he’s learned to never ask such impossible things of his father, so he just hides in the shadows. He has become rather good at it too. At this moment, the winged creature is swimming in darkness, shying away from cold, pain, rejection, and a broken heart. He fell and since then he was meant to be in the shadows.

He also knows, somewhere, that it’s not good to stay in the darkness for so long, but he doesn’t quite want to wake up, so he just ignores that feeling and stays put. If he doesn’t wake up, it must mean that his body is not ready for him to do so. And if he doesn’t wake up, he doesn’t have to face the reality in which his father hates him, and his parents are dead, and the one thing he was supposed to always have – his mother’s name for him, his family’s colours – are given to someone else, always, never him. Jason, Tim, Damian. Never him. He failed, there’s no second chances, not for the golden boy who faded.

A shooting star doesn’t shine again after it’s fallen. Even suns, stars, have expiration dates. Everything golden dies, and he was once golden.

Sometimes when he thinks of how he lost his family, he thinks of how unfair it is, that he killed, and it was once, and it was not on purpose, but it was the only way to survive, and he’s thrown out. At such instances he screams into the void and no one answers him, and he screams until he feels like he’s drowned out a little of the pain in his heart.

He never has, but he pretends anyway, and he’s gotten rather good at pretending.

Like when he pretends that he knows what he’s doing, because he did these sort of things with Bruce back when life was not good but better, and a whole team follows his orders. He doesn’t deserve such loyalty. Not when they’re part of his pretending, and they’re his friends, they are, but they’re also there to show Bruce and Batman, and whoever is the new Robin – whoever is the new thief of his mother’s name, that he doesn’t need them. That just because he is not golden and shining, it does not mean that he is broken.

And he knows it’s petty, it is and he knows this, but he can’t simply just give up and accept that his father, ex-father, the man who used to love him but doesn’t anymore, has just assumed ownership of something that was never his to take.

Batman and Robin, a partnership, and it was not supposed to be the sort of thing that just accepted replacements. Replacements that just took, and took, and took what once was his, should always have been his, and they never even took their time to thank him, or his mother, or his family for providing them with their superhero persona.

“Dick,” and it’s not his voice, and he’s so confused, but it sounds like Bruce, and he wants to cry. He doesn’t know why Bruce is here, but he’s quite happy even though he’s still furious with the man; it’s been so long, so long since he’s heard his father, and he’s missed him, and he wants him to hold him. Just like when he was a kid, the first kid, the only kid, at Wayne manor.

“Dick, please, you can wake up now,” and no, he doesn’t want that. Waking up means healing, and healing means that he’ll be kicked out of the city, he should never have returned to.

So he sinks back into the darkness which welcomes him, and he should perhaps be a little worried about how easily he embraces unconsciousness. For all he knows, Bruce is a fever induced dream, and he’s still in the streets of Gotham, and he’s dying, exposed and vulnerable and cold, and easy for criminals to kill.

He finds, and this should shock him but he’s a little too tired, that he doesn’t really care. Not right now. Not when Bruce wants him to wake up just to make him leave again.

Maybe it’s a second later, maybe it’s ten days later, but the voice is back, Bruce is back, and he lets a little go of the darkness to hear what his father wants of him now.

In the end, it’s another plea, and his heart breaks a little more at the thought of how desperate his father is to throw him out once more.

He feels so young, being this hurt by his father, or adoptive father, or once-carer. He doesn’t know what he should call him, the man who took him in after two flying Graysons crashed, like Icarus did. They flew too close to the sun, and the sun murdered them for it, and he was forced to watch, just like Icarus’ father was forced to watch as the single best thing in his life hurtled towards his death.

For a second, he debates waking up to ask Bruce if he maybe could stay, before he feels the cold creep back in, and he feels stupid, and he falls back asleep.

The next time he’s disturbed, it’s by a younger voice, and it’s one he would always recognize. It’s a thief, it’s a little brother, it’s a walking dead, it’s a murderer that didn’t care if the Bat threw him out or not.

“Dickie-bird, you have to wake up, the Bat is going crazy,” and he wonders at that before dismissing it. He almost wakes up, though, just so he can correct the first of many replacements. He’s not a bird, he’s not a robin. He wonders if he ever were, if his mother was wrong, if the name really did belong to not him but to Bruce, so he could give it to someone more worthy than him.

The blackness soothes the worries, and he falls once more. Graysons have always been good at falling, and he’s always been proud of his heritage.

When he wakes up, it’s confusing, and it’s hard, and it’s painful, and he can’t breathe, and he so wants to just go back, go back to darkness, go back to nothingness where he was just floating, but at least he wasn’t being thrown out of the home that he had come to see as so secure. As home, the home where the heart is.

He whimpers, shying away form the pain, the light, reality in all its harsh glory.

“That’s it, Nightwing, come on, a little more,” and it sounds like his father, and he feels so tired but he doesn’t fall asleep. He just wants to wake up and be held a little by his father.

He feels so young and lost.

“Bru-..”, and he can’t quite manage more, but he gets his eyes cracked open, and even though his throat is soar, and his body aches and hurts, and his heart seems to beat to quickly and erratic for his likening, and it’s cold, he opens his eyes to a glorious sight.

“Hey there, little Dick,” and it feels like once upon a time, and he almost smiles, would smile if it hadn’t been so painful to do so. He tries and ultimately fails, but looking at Bruce, it doesn’t quite feel like a failure, as much as it feels like something to try again later.

With his father smiling down at him, it feels like second chances are allowed, and he lets himself believe that for a little while.

“You’ve been out for three days,” he is informed, and he tries to nod but grimaces as it just triggers a headache, “and you’ve a broken a rib, a sprained ankle, a dislocated shoulder, and pneumonia. But what I’m trying to figure out is, what were you doing back in Gotham?”

And he doesn’t know how to answer, but Bruce, no, Batman demands one, and what he demands, he always gets, so he tries. With a wavering voice and a painful throat, he explains that “I was swinging by when I heard someone calling out for help.”

It’s a truth, and it’s a lie, but it’s all he’s going to give Batman, because the real reason is not something the Bat could ever understand. He doubts that Bruce, his father, could ever really fully understand.

Batman nods, obviously not satisfied with the answer, but he concedes anyway, and that’s a victory, and Dick is prepared to take any and all the Bat lets him have.

“Your brothers have been worried about you, too,” which well, that’s nice. Even if they’re wearing his mother’s colours, or have been, and have been using his name, it’s still nice to know that his mistake hasn’t taken his whole family away from him.

He nods and ignores the headache that follows such an action, “they don’t have to worry. I’ll be out soon.”

And Bruce is looking at him, and it’s Bruce now and he’s grateful for that; his eyes are dark, his head shaking.

“You don’t have to hurry, son,” and it fills him with such joy, that little word, “just sleep, take it easy.”

He’s always been one to follow orders, and he lets himself drift off once more, because he can feel Bruce’s one hand holding his, warm, and he can feel the other caressing his cheek, and he smiles, and he falls. But he knows, he knows, that the darkness will catch him, and when he wakes up, he won’t be chased out of his home and city.

Not yet, anyway.

Golden boys who are no longer golden are never safe.

But right now, in this moment, he knows that they can both pretend that he isn’t a fake, and that today isn’t today but in a time lost long ago when he was a little boy, and Bruce was a father and a protector.


End file.
